No way to know for sure. Is he a fairly young bird and new to the nesting thing? We had a first year nesting male do the same thing last year and I just contributed it to a lack of maturity/experience! He could have been run or scared off. Hunger should not enter into a mature male's nesting behavior, the poor birds go into a daze and don't usually eat during the whole nesting period, losing up to a third of their body weight. Some owners sprinkle a little food and set a small bowl of water within reach of the bird in the event that it finds the need to eat. In the wild, they pretty much survive by licking the dew off the adjacent vegetation. Last season, we gathered the abandoned eggs and finished hatching them in an incubator.

Thanks for info! Unfortunately we didn't know he had left the nest until it was too late to put in our incubator. Supposedly he is around 6 years old..we are the 3rd home of his so I don't have any background info,,,,the female is still laying every third day but I don't think they are fertile....im wondering if I keep all the new eggs in the pen will he make another attempt to nest or should I gather and try to incubate?

Emus hens often times will not lay unless they are being bred, so don't necessarily assume that the eggs are infertile. To be safe, we don't take a chance with letting the males incubate all the eggs and gather some for our incubators. Incubator-hatched emus tend to be much, much more people-friendly than those hatched and reared by the males. Remember, don't put all your eggs in one basket!!!

I'm confused ..she was still laying eggs while he was sitting..I think about 4...do you think they are fertile? I'm going to start taking the new ones and then going to incubate..hopefully she will keep laying! Thanks for your help!

The literature says the female can lay fertile eggs for days and days after mating. Some eggs sit in 'pre nest' for days before the male sits on them. So it could bethat a female may lay a fertile 'later' egg while the male is already sitting on an 'earlier' egg.
Ask Emu Hugger.

Hmmm. While the male (Edward) was sitting and the female (Edwina) continued too lay..he would scoop up the egg and put it in his nest..I had the bright? Idea of marking the eggs in the nest so any new egg I could pull out and drain and use for crafts..believing it to be infertile...it was right after the eggs were marked that Edward refused to sit on the nest.
Edwina has laid a couple eggs since that I pulled out..last night she laid one and Edward is sitting on it..I'm just going to leave all alone out there and see what happens..and incubate the two I pulled..